Tier One Wild by Dalton Fury Page A

the next corner if you like.”
    Curtis just shook his head. “Shut your mouth and do your job.”
    Kolt kept looking out the window. In front of him, Digger glanced in the rearview, making eye contact with his boss. Kolt saw that the young operator was waiting to see how he handled this.
    Kolt said, “Mr. Meriwether, we just took care of a major problem for you. But you are making a bigger one for yourself now. You have three seconds to apologize for that last remark or it is going to get awful crowded in that front seat.”
    Meriwether stared at the tough-looking JSOC officer. He was about to respond, but Slapshot looked out the back window and immediately said, “Boss?”
    Kolt followed his teammate’s eyes. In the thick traffic of the Al Kurnish Road a pair of similar-looking rust-colored vans changed lanes, one in front of the other.
    “The Econolines?”
    “Just a hunch,” admitted Slapshot.
    Kolt instantly forgot about his pissing match with Curtis. He focused on the two big vehicles, watched them as they wove through slower-moving traffic. The rear van blew past a police crossing guard at a traffic circle who was trying to get him to stop. Kolt had been well trained in mobile countersurveillance, and he knew what that meant.
    The two vans were doing whatever it took to stay close to one another, and to stay on his tail.
    “Good hunch,” he said to Slapshot, before leaning over to Digger behind the wheel. “Alternate rally point, and don’t take the scenic route.”
    “Got it.”
    Up front, Curtis was still a little flustered by Racer’s threat. He looked slowly around at the three military men. “What’s going on? Is somebody tailing us?”
    Kolt was more focused on the vans behind him, but he answered, “Yep.”
    “Okay.” Curtis nodded. He was prepared for this possibility. “Let’s get him to the embassy.”
    “Negative,” replied Raynor.
    “What the hell do you mean, ‘negative’? This is my op and if I say we take him to the embassy, you sons of bitches will damn well comply!” He looked at Digger. “Make a left up here and then another left on—”
    Digger said nothing, he only turned right at the intersection. Nobody was taking orders from CIA anymore on this op.
    “What the fuck?” shouted the CIA man.
    Kolt said, “Look, ace. Not trying to tell you how to run your extraction, but don’t you think there is a chance those dudes in those two trucks eight car lengths—” He turned and checked the positioning of the force following them. “Check that … six car lengths back, just might have a single cell phone between them? And do you think there is a chance these guys could scare up some confederates to set up an ambush at one of the bottlenecks between here and the front gate of the embassy?”
    Curtis opened his mouth to reply, but Raynor continued. “We head south, keep the twists and turns unpredictable, keep our tail guessing. They won’t be able to call up a blocking force from their buddies in the police or army.”
    Digger made a quick turn to the left now, and everyone in the car leaned hard to the right.
    “But … where are we going?” Curtis asked.
    “South. We have an alternate means of extraction that will pick us up.”
    The black CIA man shook his head. “No. South is desert. We get out in the open and they will have a chopper on your little rally point inside of ten minutes. The JSO has people inside the police and the air force. You three guys and your peashooters are going to be outmatched by a Hind with rocket pods.”
    Kolt shrugged. Looked at Marris and then at Curtis. “Then we’ll need to disappear in five minutes, won’t we?”
    Slapshot chuckled and then said, “Before we turn into pumpkins.”
    Curtis looked utterly confused.
    Kolt said, “Relax. We have air assets en route. We know what we’re doing. We’re frequent flyers.”
    “Why the hell do I not know about these air assets?” Curtis asked.
    Kolt nodded. “Not a clue. Take that